True grit... company welcomes a harsh climate to grow sales

The company, based in Ripon, is a manufacturer of salt spreaders and road maintenance vehicle bodywork, including gully emptiers, grit tippers and snowploughs, employing 190 people.

Econ Engineering, which has nearly doubled its turnover over the past decade, is expecting turnover to hit £22m for the year ending March 2012, with a pre-tax profit figure of just under £1m.

Its main customers are councils in Scotland and Wales, and contractors to the councils in England.

But with the onset of harsher weather in recent years, Econ Engineering has found new customers in businesses which supply gritting services to supermarkets and business parks for example.

About three-quarters of the vehicles Econ builds are constructed for sale, while the remaining quarter are built for the rental fleet.

The company specialises in supplying to the highway and winter maintenance market.

It manufactures and supplies gritter bodies which are mounted on to chassis – predominantly sourced from DAF, manufactured in Leyland, Lancashire, as well as Mercedes and Volvo.

In 2001, the company started to provide spreaders on a “self-drive hire” basis. The customer, which supplies the driver, is provided with the gritter together with full maintenance back-up with a 24-hour call-out service. The company now has a hire fleet of 375 purpose-built gritters, an asset value of over £30m, on fixed-term rental contracts throughout the UK.

Andrew Lupton, joint managing director, said the company is currently working in partnership with company Ringway, which has recently won the North Yorkshire winter maintenance contract for the next 10 years to start in April next year, to develop a new product. The pre-wet trailer spreader is trailer-mounted and towed and powered by a tractor.

Mr Lupton said: “We will launch it in agreement with Ringway but we look to have it commissioned in January.”

This is part of a drive to “localise the service more”, said Mr Lupton. “People are wanting to do things themselves but don’t necessarily have the kit.”

Meanwhile, in Scotland they are wanting to spread salt quicker and see their gritters hold larger quantities of salt, said Mr Lupton, which is an area the company is looking into for new product development.

Mr Lupton said he would expect turnover to grow with added value to the product range.

There have been several new developments at Econ Engineering over the last year, with apprentices being taken on, boosting head count and the competition of a new paint facility, which was the result of a £120,000 investment.

Mr Lupton said the new plant was introduced to “improve the paint facility” and “comply with new regulations”.

Econ Engineering’s Spargo IS, an automated spreading system it developed over the last four or five years, has been in service for the last two years.

Currently, the firm is working on the building of new units at the 6.4 acre site to create new bays where the rental fleet can be repaired.

In turn, this has freed up manufacturing space in the main factory.

On the current state of the economy, Mr Lupton said: “I think that perhaps the last two or three years have probably made people realise it might be of some benefit to not rely solely on the service industry. However, I think unfortunately now it is a bit too late, certainly for mass manufacturing.

“There is still some scope for specialised industries and if that is going to be encouraged I think everyone would say that would be a good thing.”

He added: “In the current day, if you’re not specialised in manufacturing, you won’t succeed in this country. That’s because of labour costs.”

Mr Lupton said that the education system “needs dismantling”, adding that those coming out of it are not suitably educated for the manufacturing sector. “There doesn’t seem to be a joined up approach between the labour force requirements and what people are educated in.”

Econ Engineering was founded in 1959 when Bill Lupton, Andrew’s grandfather, invented the flail hedge cutter on his father’s farm. Bill Lupton sold the business, called Lupat, to a company based in Thirsk in 1964, before buying it back five years later.

In 1972, it launched its first gritter at the IWM show in Torquay, before acquiring its major competitor from The Laird Group in 1981. In 2005, it bought MHS Highway Hire’s winter maintenance hire fleet from the administrators doubling the size of it’s hire fleet.

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